Speaker 1: The Minowat Caves is intended for mature audiences. It contains
Speaker 1: strong language and depictions of bullying, violence, and sexual assault
Speaker 1: that some may find disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. Also,
Speaker 1: this is an extremely immersive experience, and headphones are recommended.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Manawat Caves, a production of iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse Television, and Psycopia Pictures. Her skin glowed. All the
Speaker 1: other kids had that no look, no shine to him,
Speaker 1: but she glowed. I don't want to build her. You
Speaker 1: wanted that glow for your own. It weren't for me.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I had to, you had tom. Are
Speaker 1: you saying that someone made you do it? Are you
Speaker 1: saying that there was somebody that was horsing now? I
Speaker 1: ain't nobody made me m I think what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that someone coerced you. You know, he showed me
Speaker 1: the way, though. Who I'm supposed to talk about him?
Speaker 1: Mister Rydell? Who is he? Every minute I remain in
Speaker 1: Maniwa County, In every minute James Fincher's execution draws near
Speaker 1: the thick of the fall gets a ghost and I
Speaker 1: need to set things right. The only way to do
Speaker 1: that is to find out who or what really killed
Speaker 1: the Hadley brothers and sings time claim save Steeds. You
Speaker 1: can't get elected sheriff to man a Walk County without
Speaker 1: the endorsement of the first Baptist Church. Delivering on a
Speaker 1: case like this was only sure fire away Hooper could
Speaker 1: guarantee his re election. The truth to leave Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: give you a bit of advice tween you and me.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go to around stirring up troubled. If I
Speaker 1: was you, He's passed if you just let things play
Speaker 1: out the way they're supposed to. August fourth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: It's eleven. It's eleven eleven am. I'm tracing Detective Solomon
Speaker 1: Smith's footsteps from his investigation of the Haley murders fourteen
Speaker 1: years ago. One place's investigation led him Carter High School.
Speaker 1: So this morning I'm meeting with Principal Wesley Hunt. Mister
Speaker 1: Hunt was principal when I went to school there, and
Speaker 1: for a long time before that, probably went to Carter
Speaker 1: High himself. Everyone did no other choice in this part
Speaker 1: of mana Walk anyway. Principal Hunt was one of the
Speaker 1: last people Detective Smith talked to before he disappeared, and
Speaker 1: I want to know why, Principal Hunt. Yep, Julian, Julian Silace.
Speaker 1: Oh right, mister Silace, agive me. It's been a long
Speaker 1: time now still in okay time? Yep, fine, you don't
Speaker 1: mind walking with me? Sure? So you are wanted to
Speaker 1: know about Richard Riddell. Oh well, not exactly. Oh on
Speaker 1: the phone you mentioned a Detective Solomon Smith. That's right,
Speaker 1: so I figured it's about Ride Doll. He was a
Speaker 1: joiner the head when Jennifer was a senior. Yes, I know,
Speaker 1: in the way he didn't exactly stick out, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of just blended in with a wallpaper,
Speaker 1: kept his head down, wapped the floors, kept the place spotless,
Speaker 1: and left when he was done. Just an unremarkable type
Speaker 1: of guy until he wasn't. I guess. Yeah, it's unthinkable
Speaker 1: what he did to that girl. She's one of the
Speaker 1: brightest we'd ever had, got herself into that women's college
Speaker 1: all by herself. I'm actually hear about the last time
Speaker 1: you talked to Detective Smith when he was here investigating
Speaker 1: the murders of Deacon and Thomas Hathley. Okay, I was
Speaker 1: just curious if you remember what the detective was looking
Speaker 1: for when he stopped by that last time. Montainers records
Speaker 1: from May eighteen, two thousand and seven. Attendance records yep, okay,
Speaker 1: do you still have those? Nope? Gave him to the detective.
Speaker 1: You never returned him neither. Do you know what he
Speaker 1: wanted with us? Well? I imagine he wanted to know
Speaker 1: who else was absent from school that afternoon, Shives, Deacon
Speaker 1: and Thomas, and of course James fink you. Maybe he
Speaker 1: was aiming to figure out who else might have gone
Speaker 1: out to the caves that day. Someone always knows something.
Speaker 1: That was a graduation week. There were lots of ceremonies
Speaker 1: and such as. I'm sure you'll recall, antenance is always
Speaker 1: highest on that week. I'll have to see if Joe
Speaker 1: Campbell can help me find those school records. The principal,
Speaker 1: Hunt said he gave the detective Smith if there were
Speaker 1: other kids absent from school on May eighteenth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, then maybe they were there at the caves
Speaker 1: when the Hadley brothers were murdered. Maybe they saw something,
Speaker 1: or hell, maybe they killed him. But as far as
Speaker 1: I knew, the only one who spent more time at
Speaker 1: the caves than anyone was. In fact, James Fincher, he
Speaker 1: was like a brother. We both came from pain. Though
Speaker 1: our stories were different, we were the same. We weren't
Speaker 1: just lonely. We were alone, in charge of ourselves, our lives,
Speaker 1: even though far too young. I remember the first time
Speaker 1: we brought him down to see the caves. When we
Speaker 1: crusted over the small ridge and laid eyes on the hole.
Speaker 1: I fell silent. I watched Finch see them for the
Speaker 1: first time, wonder mixed with fear, mixed with excitement. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that. It's burned into my brain. He was
Speaker 1: taken by them, like me. What I remember finished his
Speaker 1: body against the mouth of the cavern, small and unguarded.
Speaker 1: He'd walked ahead of me, and I remember catching up
Speaker 1: to him, placing my hand on his shoulder. We walked
Speaker 1: in far, heard the sounds of the bats above, and
Speaker 1: deep inside, heard the strange echoes of air, the wind
Speaker 1: catching stone off kilter. It was as humid inside as
Speaker 1: it was outside, but so cool. You felt almost naked
Speaker 1: as your teenage sweat evaporated off your back and chest
Speaker 1: in that air, and here in your own breath I'm
Speaker 1: a breath of your friend. We stood there in the dark,
Speaker 1: looking deeper in, wondering if we should go further down,
Speaker 1: holding hands on shore and clammy, but holding hands. This
Speaker 1: bell completely fucking broken by the eruption of the belch,
Speaker 1: reverberating off the cave walls and echoing into the sky.
Speaker 1: Tyler was waiting for us. Inside. He'd managed to spirit
Speaker 1: a few tall boys away from an uncle, and so
Speaker 1: the three of us sat there on the rocks and
Speaker 1: drank them warm and told dumb jokes and talked about
Speaker 1: some imagined future. But I remember the spell before it
Speaker 1: was broken. Finch was mesmerized by the case Hypnotust. It
Speaker 1: was like we'd shown him the only cool thing in
Speaker 1: the hell hole of a town he was stuck in.
Speaker 1: He loved the case. All he wanted to do was
Speaker 1: go there, and after he was expelled he would go
Speaker 1: there alone. We were worried Griff Washington might catch him trespassing.
Speaker 1: No telling what that racist would do, maybe loose one
Speaker 1: of the pit bulls on him, but Finch one anyway.
Speaker 1: He'd found it out a world apart in escape, and
Speaker 1: he'd become completely fascinated. He even spent the night there
Speaker 1: a few times by himself and started mapping the caves
Speaker 1: out in great detail. He also started going to the
Speaker 1: library to find out their history. That's when he read
Speaker 1: doctor Trattner's book God's in the Mountain and Monsters in
Speaker 1: the Valley or some shit like that. There was a
Speaker 1: history of appellation in folklore. Finch wrote to Professor Trattner too,
Speaker 1: wanting to know everything you could. These same letters were
Speaker 1: later used to convict him of murder August fourth, twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty three PM. By the time Tyler and I found
Speaker 1: the remains of Deacon and Thomas, any rite of passage
Speaker 1: involving Griff Washington's property had long since been squashed. Back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, it used to be the Griff was
Speaker 1: the older guy who'd sell your cigarettes or a six
Speaker 1: pack of crappy beer for twenty dollars mark up. He
Speaker 1: didn't give a shit about kids hanging out in his
Speaker 1: land because he saw it as a financial opportunity of anything.
Speaker 1: So when kids wanted to get away from their parents,
Speaker 1: you know, be a rebel for the night, they'd sneak
Speaker 1: off to Griffs. Eventually, this led to a tradition amongst
Speaker 1: Manowa County high schoolers. Everybody knew the caves weren't safe.
Speaker 1: There were all kinds of stories about monsters and kids
Speaker 1: going missing and what have you. But when you're a teenager,
Speaker 1: that's part of the appeal. So the legend grew as
Speaker 1: leg and stew and they still lingered today. Here's the deal.
Speaker 1: Knowledge comes in different flavors. Right in the case of
Speaker 1: the Man of Wad case. On the one hand, there's evidence, testimony,
Speaker 1: police reports, all autopsies of corners, report, expert analysis and
Speaker 1: so on. On the other hand, they're superstition and folklore.
Speaker 1: It's the horrible thing. What happened those boys? Did you
Speaker 1: ever meete James Fincher in person? Doctor tredne Man only
Speaker 1: respond to letters of his son. Do you think he did?
Speaker 1: A detective? I'd be very interested to hear. What do
Speaker 1: you think picked up your relationship with James? I'd say
Speaker 1: it's hardly relationship. You corresponded, we weren't pipiles. If best,
Speaker 1: you're trying to imply there's displayed a certain engagement, shall
Speaker 1: we say, students come in don't care? Doctor Dale Trattner.
Speaker 1: I looked him up on their website. It says he
Speaker 1: was a cultural anthropologist and his story and at the
Speaker 1: University of Tennessee Nastas and give him some sense when courage. Okay,
Speaker 1: what was he curious about? He's cured for those damn caves.
Speaker 1: There is a particularly disturbing trend to those narratives that
Speaker 1: attacks themselves in the man a Lot caves. Then she'd
Speaker 1: been writing letters to doctor Trattner before he was arrested,
Speaker 1: so Smith was doing his due diligence. Stories about the
Speaker 1: caves go way back beyond early settler folklore. What do
Speaker 1: you mean, like like ghosts in which is some kind
Speaker 1: of he'll billy voodoo or something. I guess something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some history about it too. What was that?
Speaker 1: The Nadine O'Leary story. In the eighteen nineties, the O'Leary
Speaker 1: family took shelter during a winter blizzard, who became tratt
Speaker 1: inside the caves got note in that spring. As the
Speaker 1: world followed, only the youngest daughter, Nadine Ole, merged in
Speaker 1: the cave. That's the event Fincher was most interested in discussing. Okay,
Speaker 1: why is that? It's one of these great unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: of this area. Last little Nadine she made out of
Speaker 1: those caves back to town. She said she didn't do
Speaker 1: it alone. But when they searched the caves that spring,
Speaker 1: all the family members were accounted for, the remains were
Speaker 1: still there. There's no way a little Nadine O'Leary could
Speaker 1: have survived that track out of those damn mountains by herself.
Speaker 1: She's only four years old. Detective, you still have those letters,
Speaker 1: Fincher wrote you. I'm sure I have him somewhere. I'll
Speaker 1: find them for you. These were the letters that the
Speaker 1: prosecution used against Finch. They said that the letters prove
Speaker 1: he was rational and aware of his actions. They claimed
Speaker 1: this revealed the strategy on Fincher's part, a criminal mind.
Speaker 1: They wove a narrative for the jury the Finch killed
Speaker 1: the Hadley brothers out of revenge after he was bullied
Speaker 1: by them. To add spice to their argument, they referenced
Speaker 1: his library books and his second hand collection of VHS
Speaker 1: tapes and CDs. They claimed his revenge plot was based
Speaker 1: in adolescent fantasies delusions about the supernatural spirits and demons,
Speaker 1: and that based on the violent nature of his killings,
Speaker 1: he had been inspired by extreme horror movies and violent
Speaker 1: music and deathcore metal. Their big legal fucking argument was
Speaker 1: that Fincher's motive was revenge, and that his plot to
Speaker 1: kill the Hadley brothers was fueled by delusions, beliefs about possession,
Speaker 1: the paranormal, and evil from within the case. I want
Speaker 1: you to take a look at the applicant share. On
Speaker 1: one hand, we have a crime scene, the cave system
Speaker 1: on mister Washington's property and the injuries sustained by the
Speaker 1: Hadley boys. Then that crime scene, and then on the
Speaker 1: other hand we have James Fincher. We have his letters
Speaker 1: revealing an insatiable curiosity about the and I quote curse
Speaker 1: of the Caves, including the mutilation of human flesh as
Speaker 1: part of a ritual sacrifice required by the demonic forces
Speaker 1: within those caves, the letting of human blood, and so on. Now,
Speaker 1: when you take those factors and put them together, the
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence points to the fact that this case has
Speaker 1: all the markings of a ritualistic, a cult murder, a
Speaker 1: satanic murder, if you will. Then there's evidence of premeditation,
Speaker 1: evidence that this was a meticulously constructed crime. The crime
Speaker 1: scene itself, matching the drawings and diagrams found in the
Speaker 1: defendant's own bedroom, diagrams of the caves with markings that
Speaker 1: match the exact location where the bodies were found. And
Speaker 1: it is clear that James Fincher calculated, plotted, and premeditated
Speaker 1: the cold blooded murders of Deacon and Thomas Hadley in
Speaker 1: those caves. What was done to Thomas and Deacon Hadley
Speaker 1: is hard to comprehend, but it happened. It's not a dream,
Speaker 1: it's not fiction. The defense will tell us that there
Speaker 1: is no concrete evidence that the defendant, James Fincher, perpetrated
Speaker 1: these heinous and brutal acts, despite witness testimony and a
Speaker 1: clear motive. These are the facts, and the fact is
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter if we believe the caves are hard.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if any of us believe in demons,
Speaker 1: our ghosts, or are Satan themselves. The only thing that matters,
Speaker 1: that's what James Fincher believes. Finchers was a witch trial.
Speaker 1: I highly doubt such arguments as the prosecution made then
Speaker 1: would have held weighted anywhere else in the civilized world.
Speaker 1: But this is Manowa County. Between the mind grip that
Speaker 1: Reverend Perkins had on the folks of this little Salem
Speaker 1: and the deep seated superstitions about the caves. It's actually
Speaker 1: kind of a genius prosecution strategy. After all, there was
Speaker 1: plenty of lore surrounding the case. The legend I always
Speaker 1: heard was that someone lived in the caves, half man,
Speaker 1: half demon like. Doctor Trattner said, these kinds of stories
Speaker 1: exist all over the world. They're basically warnings for kids
Speaker 1: to stay out of the woods, right There are fucking
Speaker 1: wolves in there, and they want your innocence in any
Speaker 1: food you're bringing to Granny. In the case of Maniwa,
Speaker 1: the stories were meant to keep us away from those
Speaker 1: goddamn caves. But rumors are built partially on evidence too.
Speaker 1: They're kind of more like theories that live somewhere between
Speaker 1: fact and fiction. Two years after Jennifer Fowler left Maniwa County,
Speaker 1: a boy named Matthew Sweetzer was found dead in the
Speaker 1: cave with a single action revolver in his hand. Apparently
Speaker 1: he was related to Richard Rydell second Cause and once
Speaker 1: removed or something. Well. When the Haley brothers were found
Speaker 1: dead in the cave, everyone had the same thought, there's
Speaker 1: a murderer amongst us. You'd think that thought would charge
Speaker 1: every interaction with dread suspicion, but instead it sort of
Speaker 1: bound the town together, in entire town against one one
Speaker 1: eighteen year old boy. I'm heading over to meet Fincher's sister. Now, Dina,
Speaker 1: you're recording this if it's all right with you yet
Speaker 1: helps with the details, which helps with you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: h listen, thanks you know, for a grant to even
Speaker 1: this though, like, just thanks for meeting with me. I'll
Speaker 1: get it twisted. This is for James, not for you.
Speaker 1: I don't care about whatever little self forgiveness journey you're on.
Speaker 1: You said you wanted to help my brother get off
Speaker 1: death row. That's the only reason, and I mean the
Speaker 1: only reason you are here. Yeah, I get all that.
Speaker 1: You're right obviously, and that's what I want to do too.
Speaker 1: So Jimmy, turn that thing down. We got company. Dina's son, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: was born a few months after his uncle, James Fincher
Speaker 1: was put on death row. Jimmy's fourteen. Now. He was
Speaker 1: named after his uncle, but James Fincher was never Jimmy
Speaker 1: to me. He wasn't even James, he was just Finch.
Speaker 1: Finch had a speech impediment, told me once that words
Speaker 1: that start with the letter Jay gave him a hard
Speaker 1: time any letters that required his tongue to touch the
Speaker 1: top of his mouth. So he hated saying his own name, James.
Speaker 1: He would stutter, elongate the vowels, try to bury the confidence.
Speaker 1: I always made a point to call him Finch after
Speaker 1: he told me that, so Finch. Finch and his younger sister,
Speaker 1: Dina moved to Maniwa County when they were twelve and sixteen.
Speaker 1: I felt sorry for Finch from the second he first
Speaker 1: stepped foot on our school bus. He looked frail and
Speaker 1: wide eyed. The wheels were spinning in his mind like
Speaker 1: a turbine. It's tough to be a new kid, but
Speaker 1: a new kid that stood out. I mean, who was
Speaker 1: this guy? Where did he come from? And the rumors
Speaker 1: spread quick He thought her both of his parents with
Speaker 1: nothing but a pocket knife. He was really a thirty
Speaker 1: five year old undercoverage and sent by the FBI to
Speaker 1: investigate a chemical spill in the town's drinking water. He
Speaker 1: was a genuine homosexual and sent a man a walk
Speaker 1: for conversion therapy. Whatever was said about James Fincher when
Speaker 1: he first showed up, it was a disruption, and it
Speaker 1: stoked the tribal instincts in Pottsville clans. And it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for bullies to prey on him either. I
Speaker 1: wanted to stand up for him, but I couldn't. Not
Speaker 1: the time Deacon Hadley threw a couple of Warren pists
Speaker 1: on his head from the second story bathroom, and not
Speaker 1: the time Thomas Hadley locked him in his locker. I
Speaker 1: wanted to stop it, but I knew it would just
Speaker 1: make matters worse for me. I'd suffered bullying self all
Speaker 1: through Junior High, and I learned how not to call
Speaker 1: attention to myself, so I did nothing at first. But
Speaker 1: not calling attention to yourself isn't the skill Finch would
Speaker 1: ever be able to master. He had only been riding
Speaker 1: the bus for a week before Thomas Hadley sat down
Speaker 1: next to him, reached into his lunch bag, pulled out
Speaker 1: a carton a chocolate milk, and poured it over Finch's head.
Speaker 1: I remember panicing, My heart was pounded in my chest,
Speaker 1: my mouth got dried and I couldn't breathe. I remember
Speaker 1: Thomas crushing the carton against Finch's chest. Finch didn't five
Speaker 1: back he didn't even react. Maybe he felt that if
Speaker 1: he did stand up to them, it would only make
Speaker 1: things worse for him and his sister. Maybe he just
Speaker 1: checked out, disassociated as a means of survival. That's what
Speaker 1: I used to do in this sixth grade was the
Speaker 1: easy target. I wasn't into the ship that the other
Speaker 1: kids liked. I didn't play sports, I love Doctor Who
Speaker 1: an anime, and would rather read a book than play outside.
Speaker 1: So they called me a loser or geek or faggot.
Speaker 1: They didn't ask what you're eating, They asked what you're
Speaker 1: eating for. Thomas and Deacon used to terrorize me once.
Speaker 1: They cornered me in the back of the auditorium and
Speaker 1: they beat my ass and dumped a piss on me,
Speaker 1: and I was too terrified and too ashamed to call
Speaker 1: for help. Instead, I remember feeling like I wasn't even there,
Speaker 1: Like I had gone from my body, gone from the school,
Speaker 1: gone from Manowa County, my solo taking refuge someplace safe,
Speaker 1: any place but there. But that day on the bus
Speaker 1: with Fincher or something snapped after Thomas Porter's melk on
Speaker 1: Fincher's head, Duelly Tapper joined in. Monkey see Monkey do
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Dully des I had to do it
Speaker 1: his dull fucking face, looking around and see if the
Speaker 1: bus drivers even gave a shit. He started to pour
Speaker 1: his arms juice on finish. I don't know. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was because Duty was less of a threat than Thomas Hadley,
Speaker 1: but suddenly all of the PTSD in the shame i'd
Speaker 1: carried him, a guy sixth grade, I turned to rage.
Speaker 1: I don't think I was even completely conscious when I
Speaker 1: reached out and smacked the juice out of Duy's fat
Speaker 1: hand man and watched the explode on his face. You
Speaker 1: getting nap back. It was my first let chit fat.
Speaker 1: When we lasted a minute before the bus driver stopped
Speaker 1: the bus and broke it up. I remember the tears
Speaker 1: came hot and salty, and I couldn't stop him. I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to cry on when you're a seventeen year old,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't hold him back anymore. Well, look who
Speaker 1: wears the pants in this love affair, that's deacon, said
Speaker 1: Everyone laughed. After that, they called us lovers, me and Finch.
Speaker 1: They spread their rumors anyway. Me and Dually got suspended
Speaker 1: from the bus, so Dina and Finch were on their
Speaker 1: own after that, and it wasn't long before Dina suffered
Speaker 1: the attention of the Hadleys. The looks in the stairing
Speaker 1: probably wasn't new for Dina. Even at fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: Dina wasn't particularly well developed. She was behind what would
Speaker 1: be considered average for her age. Physically speaking. She dressed
Speaker 1: primarily and her brother's hand me down clothes. She kept
Speaker 1: her eyes down, her nose out of trouble, and I
Speaker 1: tried not to be noticed. And that's because she was
Speaker 1: always noticed. Dina Fincher was her own disruption in Manowa County,
Speaker 1: but where Finch had a speech impediment for people to
Speaker 1: latch on to, Dina was just female. And to borrow
Speaker 1: the phrase the Deacon Hadley was so fond of using,
Speaker 1: Dina was exotic. The same word used to describe alien
Speaker 1: fruits and endangered animals and lascivious dances applied here to
Speaker 1: a young girl. Her skin, darker, eyes deeper, gate timid,
Speaker 1: and Deacon became fixated on Dina Fincher. He started referring
Speaker 1: to her as his little squaw, a blatant ethnic and
Speaker 1: sexual slur. That's when the Fincher's quit riding the bus. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in the end, the bus probably would have been safer.
Speaker 1: It was the last day before spring break. Dina left
Speaker 1: school that day, same as any other day. While she
Speaker 1: waited for her brother, she noticed Deacon and Thomas Hadley
Speaker 1: propped up against a tree watching her. When they caught
Speaker 1: her eye, things escalated, lewd mouth gestures, wolf whistles, crotch grabbing.
Speaker 1: When Finch finally arrived, Dina didn't mention it because it
Speaker 1: wasn't out of the ordinary behavior. This kind of thing
Speaker 1: happened so often with the boys in Maniwa County that
Speaker 1: Tina had just gotten used to it, so she dismissed
Speaker 1: it like she would on any other given day, and
Speaker 1: began a three mile walk back to the Splinter Gap
Speaker 1: trailer park with her brother. Dina was aware that the
Speaker 1: Hadley brothers were following them, but she wasn't worried. She
Speaker 1: had her brother there, and besides, following wasn't new either.
Speaker 1: Anything to get a rise out of her wasn't new.
Speaker 1: She had been trained time and time again to believe
Speaker 1: the men were full of empty threats, but lacked the
Speaker 1: gumption to actually make good on them. When the Hadleys
Speaker 1: were still following them out passed where the sidewalk endid
Speaker 1: down the descolate stretch of mountain road leading towards Splinter Gap.
Speaker 1: Dina started getting nervous that it happened. Thomas Harley had
Speaker 1: gotten a hold of a rock about the size of
Speaker 1: a great prudent and let it fly across the back
Speaker 1: of Inch's head. It dropped them and Thomas hind him
Speaker 1: down on the grass where he was powerless to stop
Speaker 1: taking from going after his sister. Jimmy doesn't know the
Speaker 1: particulars about his birth or that his uncle's in jail
Speaker 1: because he killed Jimmy's biological father. Way what Jimmy's biological father.
Speaker 1: Jimmy's biological father was Deacon Hadley. I don't know why
Speaker 1: it never occurred to me who was the father of
Speaker 1: Dena's son, Jimmy. But you wasn't bashful about letting me know.
Speaker 1: Dina was assaulted, violated, and impregnated by Dickon Hadley. I
Speaker 1: didn't know. No one does. It's a town secret, except
Speaker 1: that at ain't. It was kept out of the trial.
Speaker 1: Why Bobby Hadley didn't want it out? The defense attorney
Speaker 1: didn't want the jury here in that either. It only
Speaker 1: made the prosecution's argument stronger because what has shown a
Speaker 1: clear motive undernobyl. They still went with revenge, but they
Speaker 1: couldn't prove anything. James was convicted completely on circumstantial evidence.
Speaker 1: Well I didn't have an alibi. Look, I know he's
Speaker 1: innocent too, but it doesn't matter what we think. We
Speaker 1: need to think out of the box anything to help
Speaker 1: us do that. I just I want to get your
Speaker 1: perspective if I can. Okay, Look, James lol always try
Speaker 1: to protect me, but he ain't capable of murder. Look,
Speaker 1: we come from a fucked up situation. Our father was abusive.
Speaker 1: I don't remember much. He was just a monster for
Speaker 1: when I was little. I was terrified of him. But
Speaker 1: when he was gone, I started to come out of
Speaker 1: my shell. They thought I was a mute, but when
Speaker 1: he left I started talking. Nobody knew I could talk
Speaker 1: until he left us. But our problems weren't over. Far
Speaker 1: from it. Our mother had her serious mental illness like what,
Speaker 1: I don't know. She just wasn't right, and by the
Speaker 1: time I was five she was certifiable. Like I had
Speaker 1: this doll, right, a Barbie knock off doll that I
Speaker 1: found out in the playground. Somewhere, and James said I
Speaker 1: would spend hours playing with her like she was my
Speaker 1: only friend. Then one morning I found my mother burying
Speaker 1: my doll in the backyard. Mama says she thought the
Speaker 1: doll was evil. I thought she was talking to me,
Speaker 1: telling me bad things, turning me against her. After that
Speaker 1: she started getting mean, lashing out, taking over where Dad
Speaker 1: left off. And there were some beans. The point is
Speaker 1: James always tried to protect me. Eventually they took her
Speaker 1: away Florida Stay Psychiatric Hospital, and me and James got
Speaker 1: shipped up here to beautiful manu Wa County. We'd never
Speaker 1: even met our grandma till the day we arrived in
Speaker 1: Splinter Gap, and boy did she ever make it clear
Speaker 1: that she only took us in for the government assistance money.
Speaker 1: She didn't even have a room for us her old Really,
Speaker 1: I had one bedroom and she never came out of it.
Speaker 1: So James he slept on the floor so I couldn't
Speaker 1: sleep cozy on the couch. And when Grandma died and
Speaker 1: he became a legal guardian, he gave me her bedroom.
Speaker 1: There was no single day I went to school and
Speaker 1: he wasn't right there next to me on the bus
Speaker 1: or walking me to school and back home again. And
Speaker 1: that includes after he got expelled, even when he wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed on campus no more. He told me not to
Speaker 1: ride the bus, He'd walk me, and he'd just wait
Speaker 1: outside of school property all day long until the last
Speaker 1: bell rang and he could walk me home again. I'd
Speaker 1: see him there through the class and windows, just sitting
Speaker 1: and waiting, keeping an eye out. Never met a sweeter
Speaker 1: human being than James. No, I know, and I remember,
Speaker 1: But isn't that the same motive that the prosecution used
Speaker 1: to convict him. His need to protect you. Grandma used
Speaker 1: to keep chickens back and me and James. Our job
Speaker 1: was to make sure they had worms and feed and water.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Grandma would let the rooster and the coop to breathe,
Speaker 1: and when the little chicks would hatch, it was James's
Speaker 1: job to keep them alive to protect them from the predators.
Speaker 1: Rats mostly rats would eat the baby chicks. So Mamma
Speaker 1: gave James the twenty two rifle and made him sit
Speaker 1: out there in the cold and the dark, and his
Speaker 1: job was to shoot the rats. Well. One day he
Speaker 1: shot one blew its back half off, but it didn't die.
Speaker 1: It was still breathing, suffering. James had to shoot it
Speaker 1: again at point blank. He couldn't kill nothing anymore after that,
Speaker 1: not even spiders or snakes or nothing. There's no way
Speaker 1: he could have killed those boys, even if he had
Speaker 1: more than enough reason to do so. It's not in
Speaker 1: his nature. What about that fight he publicly attacked the
Speaker 1: healthy brothers, jam right, he did fight, and they murderate
Speaker 1: the same And that one fot I use against them.
Speaker 1: They keep the people that are on top on top,
Speaker 1: and they keep the people on the bottom on the bottom.
Speaker 1: That one fot. That was all it took to get
Speaker 1: James where he is now. But he still just doesn't
Speaker 1: have the poison inside him it would take to do
Speaker 1: a thing like that the way they found their bodies.
Speaker 1: Dena Fincher was sexually assaulted by Deacon Hadley, and she
Speaker 1: became an adult in a single instant. The gap between
Speaker 1: her innocent years and the rest of her life was
Speaker 1: about three minutes, three minutes outside of her own body.
Speaker 1: Maybe her soul drifted far away from her body that day.
Speaker 1: Maybe in her mind she flew away, maybe back to
Speaker 1: Florida to bury her innocence in the dirt. Next to
Speaker 1: that knockoff Barbie Dall. When it was over, Tomy and
Speaker 1: Deacon just got up. They slung their backpacks over their
Speaker 1: shoulders like they would walk at home from their bus
Speaker 1: stop on any other day of the week. They didn't
Speaker 1: say anything, no threats, no warnings. They just got up
Speaker 1: and left Dna and Finch line in the high grass.
Speaker 1: The Finchers had no health insurance. Their grandmother had passed
Speaker 1: away only months after Finch turned eighteen, thrusting him into
Speaker 1: the responsibilities of adulthood long before most kids his age
Speaker 1: have even figured out how to microwave a cup of noodles.
Speaker 1: Somewhere between becoming DNA's legal guardian and trying to graduate
Speaker 1: high school, it had never occurred to Finch that they
Speaker 1: might need healthcare. They didn't have any money saved. Every
Speaker 1: job Finch had applied for he had been denied because
Speaker 1: of some bullshit claims of his disability, yes that's what
Speaker 1: they called his speech impediment, being a liability, or whatever
Speaker 1: other excuse was being doled out at the particular establishment.
Speaker 1: So Finch and Dina never forgot medical help that day,
Speaker 1: even though Finch suffered from a nasty head wound and
Speaker 1: bled from the back of his skull, and Dina was
Speaker 1: now a physically and emotionally traumatized survivor of Diacon Headley.
Speaker 1: The Fincher siblings walked back to their trailer. Finch did
Speaker 1: everything he could help his sister, while presumably suffering through
Speaker 1: a concussion. The next day, they went back to school.
Speaker 1: According to Dina Fincher, it was her brother's idea to
Speaker 1: go back. He knew their best better survival was to
Speaker 1: finish their educations, get their diplomas, and get the hell
Speaker 1: out of Dodge. So they put their heads down, studied hard,
Speaker 1: and worked towards that goal. But the forces that be
Speaker 1: weren't content on letting the Finchers get on with their lives,
Speaker 1: and a few weeks later, Dina found out that she
Speaker 1: was pregnant. There were so many factors, but I think
Speaker 1: that's what really did it. The mountain weight of everything
Speaker 1: gets so heavy you can't carry it anymore, and you're
Speaker 1: crushed under the pressure of all that muck and bullshit.
Speaker 1: When Finch found out that Dina was pregnant, that in
Speaker 1: spite of all that fighting to survive and remain in
Speaker 1: calm and steadfast, despite that torment, trying to win through
Speaker 1: sheer endurance that there was still gonna be another life
Speaker 1: dragged against its will into the cesspool of a world.
Speaker 1: He fucking cracked. He waited all through the school day.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing him all hopped up on adrenaline, his
Speaker 1: face going purple in the blotchy patches around his cheeks
Speaker 1: and collar, his leg bouncing so hard that it made
Speaker 1: his desk to shake and caused the eruption in class.
Speaker 1: The second that bell rang, he went for it. He
Speaker 1: humped the Deacon Hadley down like a well trained predator.
Speaker 1: He had stashed a broken axe handle in the bushes
Speaker 1: near where the Hadley brothers used to roost in the
Speaker 1: schoolyard at recess. Finch just walked quietly walked over to
Speaker 1: them as they watched him a snicker and despite his
Speaker 1: fearless approach, before they could put together what was happening,
Speaker 1: Finch retrieved his axe handle and started swinging. He gave
Speaker 1: them hell on Earth right there in the schoolyard. I
Speaker 1: remember he was standing over deacons, swinging wildly. Thomas tried
Speaker 1: to pull him back but ended up on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of Finch's elbow that laid him out. To bleeding
Speaker 1: on the grass, the explosive power of so much pent
Speaker 1: up rage contents under pressure, he snapped. I swear to God,
Speaker 1: Finch had the strength to ten full grown men that day. Man.
Speaker 1: What's then the tears came, but not to Hadley's. Finch,
Speaker 1: for all his rage, was the only one crying. And
Speaker 1: then came the laughter, Thomas Hadley, that goddamn laugh. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget it. Fincher held back by Tyler crying and
Speaker 1: Thomas bleeding on the ground, laughing like a fucking hyena.
Speaker 1: James may have done some physical damage, he drew a
Speaker 1: little blood, but they'd still won. They had broken him
Speaker 1: and his sister, and because of that nothing would ever
Speaker 1: change around these parts, Or so I thought. Finch was
Speaker 1: expelled obviously, Bobby Hadley, Thomas and Deacon's father just so
Speaker 1: happened to be good friends with the district attorney at
Speaker 1: the time they were about the press charges. But it
Speaker 1: was Dina who retaliated a DNA test proving Deacon was
Speaker 1: the father of her unborn child. She rebutted with a
Speaker 1: proof of the Hadley boy's own guilt off any legal
Speaker 1: moves were made against her brother, and so she created
Speaker 1: a stalemate. If her brother was going to jail, so
Speaker 1: were Bobby Hadley's sons. And if Bobby would back down,
Speaker 1: she'd keep the rape out of the papers and no
Speaker 1: one would ever know about it. So he backed down,
Speaker 1: and the Hadley boys not even a slap on the wrist.
Speaker 1: It was perfect injustice. It's no wonder Sheriff Hooper picked
Speaker 1: Finch as his lead suspect in the Hadley murders after
Speaker 1: those boys were found eviscerated in the caves four months later,
Speaker 1: and the whole town lit up like a medieval mob,
Speaker 1: ready to hunt the monster down with pitchforks, torches, drive
Speaker 1: it out from the fucking cave. Everyone wanted Fincher's head
Speaker 1: down a stick, everyone excepted Detective Solomon Smith, a ghost
Speaker 1: in the meal and the hounds of Hell. Dancing in
Speaker 1: Your Dancing in the Manowat Caves stars Jonathan Tucker as
Speaker 1: Julian Salis, Eddie Gathegi as James Fincher, Clark Peters as
Speaker 1: Detective Solomon Smith, Nick Sercy as Sheriff Kirby Hooper, Justin
Speaker 1: Wellbourne as Tyler Wilson, Jill Jane Clements as Jill Campbell,
Speaker 1: Brad Carter as Dooley Tappert, Scott Poythress as Reverend Perkins,
Speaker 1: Samantha Ashley as Dena Fincher, Justin Matthews Smith as Paul Salis,
Speaker 1: Tara Oakes as Laura Salis, Jonathan Horn as Deacon Hadley,
Speaker 1: Alden Kronovitch as Thomas Hadley, Mike w Anderson as Griff Washington,
Speaker 1: Bodie Walter Roth as Jimmy Fincher, Brian McClure as Ian Speaks,
Speaker 1: Larry Clark as Bobby Hadley, Paydon Fallis as ed le Blanc,
Speaker 1: Vic Polisis as William Fowler, Nick Takosky as Richard Rydell,
Speaker 1: and Aileen moy as The Darkness, with additional performances by
Speaker 1: Clint McGowan, Dina Dill, Edward Howard, Henry Foster Brown, Jamie Joseph,
Speaker 1: Juan Monsalvez, Christopher Curry, Bailey Hyneman, David Mitchell, and Bernard
Speaker 1: Sataro Clark. Created by Connel Byrne and Dan Bush, written
Speaker 1: by Dan Bush, Zoe Cooper and Nicholas Dakaski, featuring our
Speaker 1: theme song Killer Inside, written produced and performed by Lear Lynn.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Matt Frederick, Alexander Williams, Michael Monty,
Speaker 1: and Courtney Dufrees. Our executive producers at Blumhouse Television are
Speaker 1: Jeremy Gold, Chris Dickey, and Noah Feinberg. Produced by Dan Bush,
Speaker 1: Music by Ben Lovett. Additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Edited
Speaker 1: by Dan Bush, Chris Childs, Stephen Perez and David Chen.
Speaker 1: Sound design by Benjamin Malcolm. Dialogue editing and sound mixing
Speaker 1: by Jan Campus recorded at Studio Awesome in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: sound Bite Studio in Atlanta and Echo Mountain in Asheville.
Speaker 1: Casting by Sunday Bowling Kennedy and Meg Morman. Our dialect
Speaker 1: coach is Linda Bassetti. Assistant director Michael Monty, Second assistant director,
Speaker 1: script supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein. Supervising producer Josh Thine.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Mary Ellen and Jason Davis, Jonathan Deeter,
Speaker 1: and Joe Rickman. The manowat Caves is a production of iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse Television and Psychopia Pictures. So please